Nagaland film ‘Nana: A Tale of Us’ dazzles Edinburgh, top prize for Director Tiakumzuk

Last night, Tiakumzuk Aier won The Golden Calton Best Director 2017 for the film Nana: A Tale of Us, at The Edinburgh Festival of Indian Films and Documentaries (EFIFD).  Tiakumzuk is the first Naga Director to win such an award.

Exclusive for The Naga Republic from Edinburgh , UK

Announcing the prize, Diane Henderson, Deputy Artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival, said that it was a unanimous decision by the four-member jury as they were thoroughly impressed by the artistic vision, the story telling capacity, and the fact that it was done on a limited budget and few resources.

(Left to right) Jury members Bashabi Fraser, Marian Aréchaga, Anna Montazam, Tia, Diane Henderson, and with Festival Director Dr Piyush Roy (Picture Courtesy: Piyush Roy)

Nana was one of the 14 films chosen to be screened at the EFIFD. There were over 50 submissions in total and the diversity of themes including cultural memory, gender identities, mental health, politics, urban loneliness and voyeurism were beautifully displayed on screen.

EFIFD is an attempt to move away from the dominating power of Bollywood to showcase independent, creative, stimulating and marginal voices from across the spectrum of the Indian cinema scene.

This was the first time a Naga film has been screened internationally, as Tiakumzuk remarked in his acceptance speech. Given the context of how the film was made – on a very low budget with many in their first foray into film, and the message it wanted to convey, winning the Best Director is a considerable achievement. Tiakumzuk said that he felt honoured and overwhelmed by the reception of the audience and the judges.

Dr. Piyush Roy, film critic, writer, and film curator, and the Festival Director said that he came to Kohima as part of a workshop for the Film Studies Summer School organised by The Kohima Institute in August 2017. And it is here that he met Tia and his team. It was per chance that they invited Piyush to the screening of Nana and he was ‘blown away’, prompting him to encourage Tia and his team to submit Nana to the EFIFD. The rest, as they say, is history.

The film tells the tale of a Naga village, a village that can be anywhere, and a family facing the crises of love, suffering, joy, pain, and hope, as they try to live their life in Nagaland, a state with extensive corruption and abuse of power. It centres on a young family, Malay, Ano, and their young daughter, Nana, who are caught up in a whirlpool of local events, sometimes those within their control and sometimes beyond their grasp.

Tiakumzuk Aier with the Golden Calton Best Director 2017 for the film Nana: A Tale of Us

Behind the backdrop of this family drama, unfolds the grim story of the elections in Nagaland where the Minister and his coterie of enforcers attempt to maintain a culture of fear and control (represented by the lead character, Malay, and his sidekick, Thiru) and those opposing the very system that makes Nagaland a crumbling state, advocating for clean and fair elections. It is only after Nana becomes ill with Dengue fever, which eventually takes her life, that events spiral out of control for the family, forcing Malay and Thiru to reflect on the path they have taken, and seek a new one.

The film doesn’t offer any magical solutions to the problem of elections, and corruption, and how one might overcome it, but it vividly captures the everyday actions of ordinary citizens in making their voices heard amidst the power and corruption on display at large in Nagaland.

After the screening Dr. Arkotong Longkumer of the University of Edinburgh, discussed the film with Tiakumzuk.  The film was produced by Aoyimti Baptist church, Dimapur, and without their support, Tiakumzuk noted, the film wouldn’t have seen screen time. Most of the actors and the people behind the scenes, like first time screenwriter Limatula Longkumer, were also novices in the art of making films. In the context of these limitations, the achievement of Nana is considerable.

Many people in Nagaland, Tiakumzuk said, have taken on board the film’s message for Clean Elections, a message particularly important with elections coming up in 2018/19. The message that every person’s vote counts, and that as citizens we have the right to choose our leaders is something that is at the heart of electoral reforms. The key message of the film is not simply about certain individuals, but how the system itself is failing the common person. Fixing the system requires the whole state to come together, but it must start with one person at a time.

There were two other short documentaries from Nagaland screened at the Festival. The first one was Rone, by Sophie Lasuh. It tells the story of an elderly woman, Rone, in a village in Nagaland and her relationship with rice-beer. It shows how Rone brews the beer, her reasons for making rice beer, and the fact that rice-beer is part and parcel of who she is. The slow disappearance of such cultural practices, not least because of the advent of Christianity, has made glimpses into simple things like the art of brewing rice-beer all the more interesting and raises many anthropological questions about tradition, culture and change.

The other film was entitled Tales of the Tribes by Tara Douglas. The stories were selected by participants in five Tribal Animation Workshops in Nagaland (2009), Sikkim (2010), Manipur (2012), Ahmadabad for the Gond film (2012) and Arunachal Pradesh (2013). The main narrator was Verrier Elwin, the British anthropologist cum administrator and advisor to Jawaharlal Nehru on tribal affairs in Northeast India.

Tales of the Tribes is told in the medium of animation, a skill that is difficult to master and has involved many years of working in partnership with different local organisations and artists, to make it a reality. All in all, both Rone and Tales of the Tribes are great achievements, particularly when one takes into account the limited resources at hand.

The fact that two films – Nana and Rone – have been selected at an international Festival, which focus primarily on Nagaland is testimony to the growing talent within the state and the many stories that need to be told. Tales of the Tribes too illustrates the cultural richness of tribal India. These are small steps no doubt, but significant and hopefully these initial forays into the expression of local voices will lead to bigger and bolder ventures.